Mayerling (1968)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Terence Young

Writers:

Claude Anet (novel)
Michel Arnold (novel)

Release Date:

14 November 1968 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | History | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Aristocracy | Historical | Foreign Language Adaptation | Royalty | One Word Title

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Omar Sharif	...	Archduke Rudolf
Catherine Deneuve	...	Maria Vetsera
James Mason	...	Emperor Franz-Josef
Ava Gardner	...	Empress Elizabeth
James Robertson Justice	...	Prince of Wales
Geneviève Page	...	Countess Larish (as Genevieve Page)
Andréa Parisy	...	Princess Stephanie (as Andrea Parisy)
Ivan Desny	...	Count Hoyos
Maurice Teynac	...	Moritz Szeps
Mony Dalmès	...	Baroness Vetsera (as Mony Dalmes)
Moustache	...	Bratfisch
Fabienne Dali	...	Mizzi Kaspar
Roger Pigaut	...	Count Karolyi
Bernard La Jarrige	...	Loschek (as Bernard Lajarrige)
Véronique Vendell	...	Lisl Stockau (as Veronique Vendell)

Also Known As:

Terence Young's Mayerling (UK) (complete title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sex-related scenes.

Runtime:

USA:140 min | 127 min (Turner Classic Movies)

Country:

France | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) | 70 mm 6-Track (UK release) (RCA Recording System)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) | Iceland:L | West Germany:12 (f) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Sweden:Btl | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG-13 (re-rating) (1995)

Filming Locations:

Studios de Boulogne-Billancourt/SFP - 2 rue de Silly, Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Company:

Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC)

Trivia:

Originally planned as a starring vehicle for the husband-and-wife team of Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn, who had performed Mayerling for TV in 1957.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Vienna: The Years Remembered (1968)

Soundtrack:

Spartacus Suite

Austrian tragedy

I didn't recognise this film when I saw it on the schedules but with an interest in the true-life story, I decided to watch it. From an era (late 60's, early 70's) when factual historical costume drama was all the rage ("A Man For All Seasons", "Waterloo", "Cromwell", "Nicolas & Alexandra"), "Mayerling" doesn't stray too far from the established template - lavish sets, beautiful costumes, on the plus side, overlong playing time and occasional portentousness and pretentiousness on the debit side.

Terence "name above the title" Young, marshals his forces well to create a sumptuous looking film which is unstinting in its recreation of the opulence of the Hapsburg Court (in one scene a palace interior is made into a paddock for horse-riding!) and also makes excellent use of the exteriors, both around the palace and a snow-bedecked countryside around the Mayerling cottage.

He does likewise with some heavyweight acting talent and gets excellent performances in support from James Mason as the grizzled Emperor, Ava Gardner as his wife, torn between deference to her husband the emperor and maternal devotion to her son, Genevieve Paige as a lively go-between cousin and ex-lover of Prince Rudolf and James Robertson-Justice who is the very spit of Edward Prince of Wales.

In the leads Omar Sharif fails to really convey the passion of his fling with his young Baroness, nor perhaps the final madness which drives him to their destruction but is solid and certainly manly enough in his various official uniforms. Catherine Deneuve after initially offering some pith is reduced to a doe-eyed sacrificial lamb by the tragic conclusion.

There are sub-plots involving interior and exterior (to Austria) politics, perhaps played up to further contribute to Rudolf's hopeless frame of mind, as well as passing themes of royal duty, family dynasty and the universal one of stern father and misunderstood son, but in truth these tend to distract from the central theme of the film which should have been the doomed love-affair. The dialogue is over-serious and predictable at times and many scenes are too long (particularly the encounter at the ballet) but this is a tragedy after all which might excuse the funereal pace at times and the grim final scene is unquestionably well executed (no pun intended).

The cinematography is excellent throughout, redolent of Lean at his best (there's even a Zhivago-type moment at the train station with Deneuve alighting from her train, her head beautifully framed by a fur hood), but perhaps the whole lacks the cohesiveness, impulse and insight into character that Lean might have delivered had he been at the helm. And beautiful as it is, Khatchaturian's featured music, suffers a little from over-familiarity and to that extent again is inferior to Zhivago which of course had Maurice Jarre's original soundtrack to its credit.

In the end, like the tragic Rudolf himself, if you can forgive the glibness, a noble failure of a movie, although one can't help one-self jumping forward in time some 50 years to when a British heir-apparent (Edward VIII,) torn between love and duty was able to safely abdicate a throne and live abroad in luxury with his lover, Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, without the need of a suicide pact...